Thoughts

I'm back from my golfing weekend in Northern Michigan. I apologize for not taking more pictures, but the 100+ I took from our 27 hole adventure at the Bay Harbor Golf Club (complete with pics of the various wildlife) are available here:

http://www.privatjokr.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=39

Cont'd from East Coast Road Trip Part I - A Day in the Car and a Night in Philadelphia.

Josh's friend Will was kind enough to host us for our two nights in "the city." He lives in a stereotypical New York City apartment in the Murray Hill area (so he said). Parking is not the easiest thing to do, but we found a place to leave my car and caught a cab to the apartment. A boring afternoon of sitting on the couch, watching ESPN and making then changing plans for the evening ensued.

If you were wondering, it is rather difficult to plan an evening out when coordinating 2+ groups of people. Even more so when one of the two groups is incredibly fickle. Once the non-committal UofM grads finally got their act together, I could fill the easy-going Villanova grads in on the plans.

The first bar, which I believe was called The Delancey, was horrible. It could have been fun had there been more space available on the roof, but each table was reserved. The downstairs/inside area was a) empty b) expensive c) no fun. Yes I understand that b) is to be expected in NYC, but it is only worth mentioning when a) and c) are present as well. The only highlight was when Matt, Doug and Andrew showed up. Once they met up with us, there was no need to stay there.

Croxley Ales (I think that's the name) was the next destination. We segregated somewhat at this bar, for me to catch up with my friends and Josh to catch up with his, before the two groups converged somewhere else later in the night. Croxley was the place where Doug and Andrew bid us goodnight and Scottie joined the fun. Rumor has it: Croxley Ales has a pretty mediocre order of chicken fingers.

To this point, the night has been fun, sure, but it was Josh's birthday so the stop at the next place needed to be only a brief one (for a few pitchers of sangria) before we moved on. Not including carry out from the diner by Will's apartment, our final destination was Chelsea Piers. Someone said that where we went may have been called the Frying Pan or something like that. It was a party barge hosted by a contingent of proud Italians where they played loud European techno. We would not have stood much of a chance getting into the party had one of Josh's friends not gone to bat for us with the bouncer. It was like watching a live take of Jim Carrey on the elevator with one particular woman in the movie Liar Liar...

I was not surprised to learn that it was not the first time that Matt had employed his tactic of walking up to random women, placing his index finger on their head and flat out ordering them to spin around like a ballerina. If I had to picture my sister-in-law coming up with two words for this method, I would guess "offensive" and "degrading." If I had to come up with two words of my own they would be "surprisingly" and "effective." Kudos, Matt.

Like a preoccupied parent in a busy department store, I lost Scottie at one point. There was no need to panic when I found him shortly thereafter standing behind the giant stage. The real show, he taught us, was not seeing the drunk people party from the front, it was watching, from behind, the two girls in short shorts at the back of the stage. Everything he does is gold; some things never change.

____

Friday held much of the same from a broad perspective. After I woke up at the crack of dawn (9:30am) and took the $9 cab ride to my car so I could move it for the street cleaners and did what felt like a walk of shame all the way back to Will's apartment, the day began.

We had an awesome lunch at Tao on 58th, which I will post about separately. After lunch we walked down 5th Ave, and through Times Square for a bit before finding ourselves back on Will's couch with a pair of 6-packs to watch (I can't believe I'm about to admit this) the Yankees game. We had plans to be at Matt's apartment by 8 to grab food before we went out, ultimately to go to a bar where Will was offered free shots whenever he comes by because the bouncer thought he and Josh were from Harlem. That's right. Josh. From Harlem. Be patient, I'll explain that in due time. There was a small set-back in our schedule however.

While we were starting to get ready for our night out, we had the radio on. At one point, we heard one terrible song and changed the station. It was on the next station, too. And the next. We could not figure out why a song with such simple (see: stupid) lyrics could be so popular as to be on so many stations on a Friday evening. Our good friends at Google, combined with the glory that is Youtube saved the day. One of the three of us may or may not have seen some kids on the BET show 106 and Park promoting that very same song and the dance craze that accompanies it. We easily killed an hour and a half watching some HILARIOUS videos on Youtube for the Chicken Noodle Soup Dance (and Nurse Kate).

Some favorites:
me, neno, an jc killen that chicken noodle soup dance
Me (Smilez) Bussin one of my moves for tha chicken noodle soup dance.
Dee & Dre killing the chicken noodle dance.

Will was actually letting it rain, as the song goes, outside of the bar when he was confronted by the bouncer. "Are you guys from Harlem?" The Chicken Noodle Soup Dance is sweeping through Harlem and before we got our hands on it, was known by very few (white) people outside of New York. We proclaimed Chicken Noodle Gospel to friends from all over on the rest of our trip. High comedy.

Also included in Friday night were two trips to the same bar, book ending the bar where Will now gets free shots. Tonic was an interesting place, but nothing special. The place was absolutely packed for what ended up being the longest baseball game in the history of the MLB. We could not stand the place while it was that crowded which led to our going next door. We went back when we thought the place would be more fun since the other place was basically empty.

Our return trip to Tonic meant good times. Let me start the story on a highlight, Will met a girl. From there, it is all downhill. When the writers of Wedding Crashers described the "stage 5 clinger" they had not met "Alicia." There is debate about whether he enlisted the correct man's help in getting rid of her by asking my brother's friend Josh (different Josh...who lives in NYC and was able to join us) to be mean to her. I didn't know he had asked Josh for help, so I came into the conversation late.

Alicia: Why would you say that? That is so rude.
Josh: ...
Me: Rude? Josh? No. Not possible. (Knowing it was not only possible, but probable.)
Alicia: He told me that he wished this pole would fall on my head.
Me: He would never say something like that.
Alicia: He just did!
Josh: No, she's right. I did say that.

Come on. That's funny. He said he wanted the pole to fall on her head! Wow. You have a warped sense of physical comedy. And not even that was enough to get this girl to leave poor Will alone. I love New York (enjoy that, I don't say it often).

I almost got an omelet from the diner that night, but I had an overwhelming urge for something...fried.

Stay tuned for East Coast Road Trip Part III - One for the Books "Down the Shore."

Number of consecutive days eating chicken fingers: 3.

Sun sneezing

Do you have a tendancy of sneezing when you walk out of your front door into the sunlight? Do you sneeze when you look up towards the sky? Not everybody does but apparently up to about 1 in 4 of us sneeze as a result of bright light - usually the sun. Have you ever wondered why? Read on to find out...

What is sun sneezing?

Sun sneezing or photic sneezing is a genetic condition (sometimes called 'ACHOO Syndrome') in which the signals from your eye to your brain are somehow also received by the part of your brain which deals with the sneeze reflex. This means that when your brain is being told to contract your iris in response to increased light it also thinks that it is being told to produce a sneeze. - DanKarran.com

Other resource:
Madsci.org

For as much time as we spent talking about our road trip, Josh and I really did not plan it in any detail. We knew what days we would be gone because other commitments and lack of vacation time set aside a block of days by the process of elimination. We knew what cities we wanted to visit and roughly who we hoped to see in each. Beyond that, we had no plans. We did not know how many nights we would spend in each city, nor what we would do while we were there.

There are always changes that can be made for the next trip, should it ever occur, but as the inaugural voyage it was perfect. I had an awesome time spending a few days outside of Michigan, seeing old friends, making new friends, eating way too much and doing it all in a span of 6 days and just over 1700 miles.

I do not vacation often, but I am at least familiar with the sense of elation that overpowers all semi-rational thinking once the trip is officially underway. Josh and I really had to temper our excitement to avoid a moment like the one in the movie Swingers when Trent and Mikey scream with excitement about their trip to Vegas only then to have to endure the majority of their long drive in an uncomfortable, anti-climactic silence.

Anyway, 14 of us set out on the roughly 600 mile stint from Detroit to Philadelphia: Josh, myself, and 12 crispy strips from KFC. Yes, they were all for me. He ate, so don't concern yourself with that detail. Excuse Explanation: It's just my road-trip snack. When I have a drive that will last that long, I don't like to stop for food...and I have a crazy fixation with chicken fingers (more on that later).

I loaded up my iPod with a few extra albums that definitely came in handy. Only once did we have to revert to an east coast/west coast showdown battling 2PAC and Biggie. I am sorry to report that, like the proverbial 100 coin flips, the battle still ended without decision. We had hoped to return home with the issue settled once and for all. Alas, the debate rages on...

Our first stop was actually in West Chester, PA and not Philly. My buddy Sean was kind enough to host us for the night, and he calls West Chester home. We stopped by his place to drop off our stuff and get him (and the other Sean) before we headed into Philly. We had serious business to attend to once in the city. I was a man on a mission. It had been two years since my last Pat's cheese steak. That streak must end before my night continued. And end it did (Wednesday saw one streak start and another come to an end) I had my "cheese witout" with my cheese fries and birch beer. There ain't nothin' finer.

The next stop for the night (after picking up Moyer) was Finnigan's Wake. Finnigan's is a bar I went to a few times when I lived in Philly that was closest to the atmosphere we were after. We just wanted something low key where we could hang out and catch up. Oh, it was also a chance for Sean Delaney AKA "The Verbal Assassin" AKA "Silk Spinner" AKA "I spit hot fire" to show Josh how my college friends bust my chops (let's hope he didn't pick up any pointers). It was karaoke night at the bar, which was an interesting backdrop for our night out and didn't actually come to the forefront until Josh thought it would be a good idea to tell the (rather unattractive) girls he was hitting on that I was going to sing my favorite song, which he reported correctly or incorrectly to them as It's Raining Men. Maybe he could have just gone with "Would you like a fish sandwich?" Perhaps if I were a better friend I would have helped the kid out and karaoked the song for him...

Unfortunately, Mark (joined the night by meeting up with us at Pat's) had to leave early because apparently some people work for a living. Shortly thereafter we headed out. We took Moyer home, allegedly because of the same lame excuse, before we headed back to... Pat's(!) for round two.

Cheese steak.
Bar.
Cheese steak.

Life is good.

We talked briefly about seeing a few things in Philadelphia before moving on to the next road-trip destination, but ended up seeing nothing of the city on Thursday after we got up. In the end I think it was more beneficial for us to rest a little and hang out at Sean's since he had the day off rather than go downtown and try to drive around a bit. The excuse I used at the time was that Josh seemed to be chomping at the bit to get to our next destination (New York City) and since it was his birthday (more on that in Part II) I wanted to cater more to him. The excuse I use now is that it just means we have to do it all over again...

Stay tuned for East Coast Road Trip Part II - More Friends and Two Nights in NYC.

Number of consecutive days eating chicken fingers: 1.

Q. What is the difference between baking and roasting in an oven?

A. There is no difference. If you want to be finicky or traditional, you can't actually roast food in an oven — to roast traditionally meant to cook food (meat) with an open flame, as on a spit in front of a fire (as opposed to grilling on a grate over a fire). But the fire and its radiant heat were the essential components of roasting. Nowadays, roast is bake and bake is roast. -Ochef

I am a big sketch-comedy fan. I have avoided Saturday Night Live because for some reason I find it largely unfunny. I have spent most of my formative sketch-comedy enjoyment wrapped up in The Kids in the Hall, or more loosely known as the show Lorne Michaels did that was actually funny.

All it took was a "shh" in an instant message from a buddy today to send me reeling through the sketch-comedy archives in my brain. There is a permanent bookmark in said archives around what is probably my favorite sketch of all time. I know that is a bold title to give out, but I mean it.

Some of you may remember that MTV had a show years ago that fits with Kids in the Hall in my heart. MTV's The State was the comedy troup that has done a few movies and is basically the current cast of Comedy Central's Reno 911.

"Now I know what you're thinkin'. Barry and Levon, where did you get $240?"

"Shhhh"

"Don't worry your pretty little head about it baby."
"It ain't yo' concern."

It gets no better than this: http://youtube.com/watch?v=GUFCynlh5Eg